


A Task Force, a Model, two Shinigami, and Six Geniuses Walk into a Bar

by orphan_account



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Crack, Domestic Fluff, Everyone Is Alive, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22247203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Good News! For some reason that nobody knows let alone can explain, the cast of Death Note is all alive and has called a weird truce. Everyone (except Soichiro and that gets awkward sometimes) knows Light is Kira, but they won't do anything about it. All the Wammy's Boys are here too, and not trying to compete for L's title.Asking each other obscure questions involving existential dread; L extremely high on coffee; getting stuck in a ditch for days; going to a bar; and learning how to celebrate the holidays without murder involved, how nobody dies during this misadventure is a mystery beyond the greatest minds.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 34





	1. I Have Two Goblets

Light was sitting between two tables. One of which had L and Near, sitting in their usual odd way, and the other table had Mello and Matt. Of the five geniuses in this room, not one of them knew why they were here, just that the Wammy's Boys were going to debate something in teams, and Light was going to contemplate their answers to use for his own nefarious Kira schemes. 

Yes, everyone in the room knew he was Kira, but none of them could bring themselves to give a crap for some reason. Then again, L and Near had known he was Kira immediately after laying eyes on him, so this didn't come as much of a shock. 

Light looked at the two goblets in front of him, reading a piece of paper to explain the context, "As you can probably guess, one of these goblets is poisoned. But what you didn't guess is that it's also the most delicious thing you will ever taste. The other is not poisoned, but it is the knowledge as to exactly how you are going to die, but not when, and it tastes just okay. Which will you give the other team?"

The detectives were all silent for a moment before Matt turned to Mello,

"How much do we care for L and Near is the ultimate question, so we can make a truly moral choice." Mello sat straighter, while Light grabbed some potato chips as he watched this unfold, "Do we saddle them with existential dread, and they will have to live with that for the rest of their existence? Or to we take that burden upon ourselves and end them now?"

Mello gestured to the other table, "I know both halves of that table well enough to know that neither of them gives a fuck about how they are going to die."

L sent the two successors an emotionless expression, and in his usual monotone voice said, "Oh please, not existential dread. Anything but existential dread." He sounded extremely sarcastic with how little emotion was in his tone.

Mello continued, "There is a piece of me that wants to know how I am going to die, and I'm willing to take that chance."

"Take that chance and murder them?!" Matt asked in exasperation.

"Yeah, that's fine." 

"O-Okay. So the whole morality thing...?"

"Oh yeah, I don't care. At least this way I won't have to compete with Near for number one anymore." He waved at the other table, and Matt shrugged,

"Fuck ethics, bye, guys." 

Near turned to L, and he too didn't sound like he cared, "So, we are being gifted with a new experience."

L bit his thumb, "Yes, the most delicious thing we ever can taste, and the last thing we will taste—hopefully. What if we do survive," he looked Mello dead in the eye, "And we know that you poisoned us? What if when you drink out of your goblet, you see us revenging ourselves upon you?"

Light had to admit the idea of L coming back to get revenge had haunted many of his nightmares.

Mello didn't seem disturbed, "I kind of like that."

Near was playing with his puppets, seemingly playing out the scenario in which they were describing, as L continued, "If you drank out of your goblet and see me strangling you, that's Beyond Birthday in disguise again. Speaking of which, where is Beyond and who is keeping watch on him right now?" There was uncomfortable silence because nobody knew where that serial killer born with Shinigami eyes was at the moment.

Light looked up from his stand, "You strike me as an ordering a hitman kind of guy."

"Yes. I am not you with the murder notebook, Light-Kun. I would much prefer to press a button, and a hellfire missile rains down from the sky."

"See, now I don't feel so bad about trying to kill L," Mello said, and Light nodded,

"And you wonder why I was trying to kill you."

"No, I don't wonder why. I merely find it rude." 

Matt was stammering before pulling out a cigarette, "No, it's that they will have the most delicious thing, and then they will expire."

"No, we're talking about the possibility of us drinking the goblet and seeing L, or maybe BB is the one that killed us."

"Or maybe Near," L defended, and Near looked up from his toys with a small shrug, "He's still here." 

"I highly doubt it will be Near," Mello scoffed, taking a bite out of his chocolate bar like an animal, making Light wince a bit, then feeling weird for hating with such a passion the way Mello eats chocolate. 

Near spoke up, "What if when you drink that goblet and see your death, what you see is yourself drinking that goblet? And the reason is the contents of those two cups are poured from the same bottle." 

"Are you suggesting just dumping out the drink and then keeping a commemorative keepsake goblet?" Light asked, trying to see how this worked. "If you pour out the chalice, does that attract the attention of the gods now as affecting your predetermined lifespan?"

"I would think there's a rule set in place to prevent people from circumnavigating the rules of the goblet." Matt mused from where he had just finished off a cigarette, and Mello snatched the second one out of his hand before it could be lit, and threw it across the room.

"Anton Chigurh going up to you with a stun gun and asking what's the most delicious thing you've ever tasted?" Mello looked to L, "What would be the most delicious thing you've ever tasted?"

"Wouldn't know because I would have yet to taste it. However, what if you drink this thing before you die, and it isn't that delicious? At least you have the experience, but what if it has the flavor like cold ragoon from a jar with pasta sauce, leaving you to wonder why it is that way and dying unsatisfied. Or if you are in America and really hammered and go to Taco Bell at 3am and it's the best thing in the universe. I personally would be satisfied with cake, but does the goblet's flavor change per person?"

"You know," Matt stood up, "You've sold me, Ryuzaki, I want to taste the poison!"

"For 3am, Taco Bell?!" Mello asked incredulously.

"I mean, that could be the best thing," Near said. 

"None of us are _from_ America, why are we talking about 3am American Taco Bell?!" Light asked, and all the Wammy's Boys shrugged since they had all been to America at least once. 

"Wait," Mello crossed his arms, "What if I drink mine, saw my death, and then drank theirs anyway to write my own destiny?"

"It probably means you won't die immediately." Near said, "Say you saw your death was being hit by an airplane. It is likely the paramedics would fly you to the hospital via helicopter, and then you get hit by a plane as the helicopter is taking off?" 

L chuckled, "If that happened, either it's Kira's doing, or it really is your time to go." 

"If it was Kira's doing, then that would still mean it's your time to go," Light reminded him, and L shrugged.

"Wait, did we answer the question?" Light asked, "I'm actually interested in what all of you would pick. L and Near, would you give Mello and Matt existential dread, or their immediate death and one of the greatest experiences?"

"Either option is more merciful than if you got your way, Light-Kun."

"Shut up and answer the question! We've covered a lot of what-if scenarios, but no actuals." 

"Well, there is no definite answer. But if I choose to project, I will assume everyone here has existential dread as it seems to be the human condition, so giving a bit of certainty doesn't seem that bad. However, I couldn't honestly look at any of you, even you, Light-Kun, and say you have to die now."

"I would love to know how I'm going to die," Near said, "To have that thought stop bothering me when I'm in the middle of wishing to go back to kindergarten where all you have to do is play with toys and clap your hands in a certain pattern. On the flip side, having that knowledge would essentially be saying I give up. But the problem regardless would be knowingly giving someone else, who I don't hate, poison."

"So, you would have a hard time making a choice?" Mello asked, and L shrugged,

"Again, it depends entirely on the situation." L stated, "As of now, it is handier for me for you to make that choice. Though I suppose I should be around to bring Kira to justice, and dying of something unrelated to him seems somewhat anticlimactic. The most ethical choice is to get consent, if possible, if the curse allows. I would rather kill somebody then and there instead of giving them the existential dread of knowing how they are going to die, but not when. Unless they're fine with it, in which case poison time for me."

"So what we've learned today is that I'm a special case in L's book," Light said, "And existential dread can be said many times in ten minutes, and none of you care all that much about death. I will give you," he looked at the paper about what to do in this situation, "A hundred points for reluctance to poison each other."

"Wasn't it my idea to poison them?" Mello asked, "You should probably give the points to Matt."

"How about 25:75?"

Matt turned to Mello, "At no time did I say I was reluctant to poison anybody."

"Well, now I know my successors have no qualms with offing me to take my job," L muttered, "Light, that includes you."

"When did _I_ become one of your successors?!"

"Chapter 45."

"What?"

"What?" L asked, mirror-like eyes staring into Light's very confused soul before he got up to leave with nothing else said.


	2. For Want of a Rope, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a hiking trip goes awry, Light and L find themselves stuck at the bottom of a cliff.

Light probably should have known better. When did anything they do ever go smoothly? After yet another fight between Light and L, breaking the truce even though beating the crap out of each other was kind of what they called fun, they were told to take a hike for a little bit. Neither of the two of them was happy about that.

And of course, L had managed to fall off a cliff. Wonderful. Light had just regained consciousness to find himself at the bottom of the cliff himself, after climbing down to rescue L because he didn't want to make that phone call.

In hindsight, he probably should have used the rope.

In some ways, he was glad L wasn't awake yet, because he would be unbearable about the whole "forgetting the rope" thing. Then again, if L did finally wake up, he could get Light's arm out from underneath this bloody rock so they could focus on getting back up.

He tried again to push the rock on his arm off, but it refused to budge.

"L!" Light called, giving the detective a small kick to try and wake him up. L remained immobile.

Light had to admit the sight of L lying still and quiet was unnerving—something he only fantasized about but was usually woken up by L staring into his soul. Luckily L didn't seem to hurt by the fall, though it was hard to tell from the rock he was still stuck under. If L was injured, this just got a whole lot harder.

He pushed at the rock again, but it refused to move.

Trying not to scream in frustration, he shifted onto his front in case that magically made the rock lighter.

"Light!"

Light could have cried out in relief. Standing at the top of the cliff was Near, looking happy to see them, which was nothing to the comfort that Light had. He wanted to get moving again and—though he wouldn't tell L—check that L was okay. 

"I'll just climb down to help you then!"

Light's eyes snapped open. "NO! Just throw the rope down!"

But it was too late. Near had started to descend down the sheer cliff. Maybe it would be fine. Maybe Near wouldn't fall like they had. Perhaps if they were lucky…

But since when was luck ever on his side?

Near slipped and tumbled down the cliff like a rag-doll, bouncing off small ledges that were dotted across the cliff. Light winced as Near landed at the bottom with a loud 'CRACK' that echoed across the gully. A loud yell of pain told Light that nothing too vital seemed to have broken.

"Are you okay?" Light asked anxiously, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice.

"I think that was my leg," Near called back, and Light turned towards the sound. Near was pushing himself into a sitting position about three meters from where Light was, massaging his left leg with a pained expression on his face.

"Do you think you could get this rock off me?" Light asked as Near glanced at L's still unconscious form. Near made as if to crawl towards Light, but his leg gave out beneath him, and he fell forward with a small yelp. He pushed his chest off the ground and shook his head sadly. Light didn't bother to keep the annoyance out of his frustrated yell.

"Is anyone else coming?" Light asked hopefully, but Near shook his head.

"I didn't know where you were going." He glanced towards L. "I suppose we'll just have to wait for L to wake, and then he can get your arm free."

Light gave L an apprehensive look. Everything relied on L waking up.

And seeing as, just their luck, L's body would take the moment of unconsciousness to fix his horrific sleep deprivation, they were _doomed_.

OoOoO

"Urrrggg…"

Light looked away from the cliff, where he had been counting the different types of moss for some warped version of fun. Hopefully, that groan meant L was finally waking up. He shifted onto his side so he could see L, and the odd scuffling sound nearby said that Near was probably doing the same thing.

"L?" Light asked, as L tried and failed to sit up. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine" L gasped in a voice that most definitely did not sound 'fine.' He pushed turned towards Light and Near, eyes widening in surprise as his eyes rested on Near.

"Where did Near come from?" He asked, turning towards Light with confusion on his face.

"I was the rescue team," Near said wryly from the ground. "We've been waiting for you to wake for half an hour."

Half an hour? It had only been thirty minutes? Well, that had definitely been the most boring 30 minutes of Light's life, and Light had been in classes about the quality of brass before. Some of those teachers could be _incredibly_ tedious when they wanted to be. Which seemed to be all the time. He did spend most of his time in those classes active, avoiding eye contact with certain people in case they took it as a signal to engage him in conversation.

L turned away from Near and looked at Light with a raised eyebrow.

"Are you okay?" he asked as he struggled to push himself upright on an arm that appeared to be broken.

"I'm fine," Light said, "Apart from the massive rock that's pinning me down to the ground."

L rolled his eyes, and finally managed to struggle into a standing position, clutching his arm close to his chest. He made his way towards Light and bent down over the rock, which was still pinning him down.

It took ten minutes of futile grunting and pushing for Light to realize L was not going to be able to push the rock off with a broken arm.

It took another five minutes for Light to stop shouting loudly about this.

"Well, I guess we'll have to wait for one of the others to come looking for me," Near said, as L sat himself down on a rock opposite the one still on Light. Near had pushed himself mostly upright and had propped himself up on his arms. "That should only take a day or two because it's going to be my turn to keep an eye on Beyond Birthday and I know Mello won't be happy about me not being around to change shifts."

There was silence.

"So…" L said awkwardly, "Did anyone remember any food?"

OoOoO

"I spy with my little eye…" Near said slowly, glancing around at his surroundings "something that begins with 'N'"

"Is it 'Near' again?" L asked as Light resisted the urge to smash his head repeatedly against the cliff's rocky wall.

"Yeah. okay, your turn."

"I spy with my little eye… something beginning with 'M'"

"Is it… moss?"

"Nope."

"A maniac?"

"No. If it was, I'd use K."

"Moon? Men? Mud? Monkeys?"

"No, no, no, and no."

"What about-"

"IT'S MYSELF!" Light yelled. "NOW SHUT UP AND LET ME BROOD IN PEACE!"

One second of silence.

"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'K'…"

"Kira?"

"Yes!"

OoOoO

"Knock, knock."

"No."

"Come on Light-Kun, it's not that hard, just say 'Who's there'"

"No"

"Knock, knock."

"L, shut up."

"Fine then. Near, what about you, then? Knock, knock."

Light glowered, "L, you should count yourself extremely lucky that my arm's still trapped under this rock, or I might strangle you!"

Near looked to L, "I'd advise waiting for Light to calm down before we try again to move that rock."

Silence.

"I spy with my lit—"

"IF YOU START THAT GAME AGAIN, I WILL THROW THIS ROCK AT YOU, TRUCE OR NOT!"

OoOoO

"I see that I didn't even need to be here for you to get yourself into trouble."

Light groaned loudly. Just when he thought his crap day couldn't get worse, the universe went and made the original serial killer genius appear while he was injured—and he was still bitter about Beyond taking his spot. Great.

"Beyond Birthday." L said, looking up as to where his doppelganger was standing up on the cliff ledge, peering down at them all.

"Ah, L," Beyond Birthday said, turning towards him. "I've meant to—AHH!"

Beyond had taken one step forward, perhaps to make some sort of threatening gesture or maybe because he was unsure he actually saw this. But he'd stood on a wobbly rock which had flown out from beneath his foot and sent him flying backward and off the edge of the cliff. He slid down the cliff face and landed on the ground next to them, his head hitting a rock as he did so.

"Beyond?" Light asked cautiously, as Near poked him with his unbroken leg.

"He's unconscious," Near said, turning to Light as L rolled his eyes.

"That's the fourth person who's fallen off that cliff." He commented, looking up at the cliff in question.

When Light got out from underneath this rock, he was going to put a fence along that cliff. His perfect world couldn't have that hazard around. 

OoOoO

"Light!" Misa was at the top of the cliff, looking down worriedly at them, "Are you okay?"

"Fine!" he called up. If he still had the full use of both of his arms, he'd be punching the air right now. They had gotten the rock off about an hour prior after Near and L mustered up all their strength and combined their powers, meaning L used the sticks and a small number of supplies they had dropped down with them to create something to lift the rock.

Misa looked anxiously down at them, as though she didn't believe that Light was okay for one second. Her eyes roamed over Light, and his mangled arm, Near with his still broken leg, L who was trying to make himself a makeshift sling with whatever had fallen down with them, and Beyond Birthday's unconscious form.

"You're a terrible liar, Light," Misa said, as Light looked up at her, offended, before remembering she thought he was actually honest with her. And the evidence of him not being okay was scattered around him, "You need help!"

"Yeah, probably."

"Wait for a second; I'll just climb down to you…AH!"

"No! DON'T—!"


	3. For Want of a Rope, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Light and the crew are still stuck at the bottom of the cliff, but more people are joining them.

"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'B'"

Light glared at his three other conscious companions at the bottom of the cliff. Since Misa had fallen down, Light's frustration had reached dangerously high levels, and he was currently prone to throwing small pebbles at L's head whenever he opened his mouth to talk. L had responded to this attack by starting a new round of "I spy" as revenge. Light had to admit he was somewhat surprised at the range of objects L had spotted at the base of the cliff.

"…Beyond Birthday?"

"Uh-huh. Misa, your turn."

"I spy with my little eye… something beginning with…—Matsu!"

"Misa, you only choose one letter, and anyway, there is no—MATSUDA!"

There was a loud 'thump,' and a dusty Matsuda landed in front of them, with a small pile of the dislodged cliff. Matsuda looked around at them all in mild bemusement.

"I could have sworn the ground was further away a few minutes ago…" Matsuda mused.

"Matsuda? Where did you come from?" Misa asked, glancing up at the death-trap that was the cliff path.

"I'm not entirely sure," Matsuda admitted, looking up at the cliff himself, "But I think I might have wandered off a cliff."

"Well, at least this means we can finally get out of here. Do you think you could climb up to the rope?" Light asked quickly, trying to get a word in before Matsuda began to regale them with a story, "because we've been trapped down here for hours, and it's starting to get dark now."

Matsuda looked up at the cliff pensively for a couple of seconds, frowning in concentration before he finally answered. "Probably."

Light grinned in noticeable relief, but L was looking slightly put out. It seemed to Light that even with the broken arm, L had been enjoying himself immensely ever since he'd tumbled off that God-forsaken ledge. Maybe he was way more sadistic than Light had accounted for.

Light turned to Matsuda, who still hadn't moved towards the cliff and the rope. If anything, he looked like he was making himself comfortable on the rock he was sitting on.

"Are you going to get that rope or not?" Light asked after about two minutes of waiting.

"Not."

"Wait, what?"

"You look like you're having a party down here, and I wouldn't want to miss it!" Matsuda said with a shrug, pulling out his pack and searching inside it for something while Light glared at him. "Look, you've got L, Near, and Misa, not to mention Ryuk followed me to come to find you. And I think that's L's psychotic lookalike over there. Why would I want to leave?"

"Did you bring food?" L asked. Matsuda nodded, pulling out about a day's worth of food for one person. Better than nothing. What they needed was for the bags that Light had left up above to miraculously fall down to them, because that had plenty of food.

Light glared up at the cliff-of-doom as he laid back against the cliff face. It was going to be a _long_ night.

OoOoO

"No. If you begin I-spy again, I will write your name in the Death Note."

"You don't have it," Matsuda said with a smug grin.

"Light, stop sulking and come over to the fire," Misa said, gesturing to an empty space beside her. Near and L sat opposite her, fervently discussing theories and their favorite flavors of cake with Matsuda occasionally butting in.

"There is no fire," Light pointed out, pointing at the not-on-fire pile of wood the four of them—minus a still unconscious Beyond Birthday—were sitting around.

"Not a problem," L said with a smug smile at Near, which Near returned. "Near, if you could do the honors."

Near took a couple rocks and banged them together with some wood, actually managing to start a decent fire. Unable to think of a reason to stay sulking by the cliff, he walked to the flame and took his seat next to Misa.

OoOoO

"Urrrrrrg…"

"Not to alarm anyone, but I think Beyond Birthday's waking up," Matsuda said, looking at the feebly stirring form of the serial killer on the ground nearby.

"That's not good, is it?" Near asked.

Beyond Birthday moved once more, and blearily began to open his eyes.

"Where am I?" he asked, turning his head. He froze as he saw his rivals in front of him, casually sitting around a campfire.

He staggered to his feet, anger in his eyes. He sneered down at them, as Light glanced at L, wondering what exactly they were gonna do now. Near had confiscated Beyond's knife, but they all knew Beyond was better in combat than the white-haired boy.

Beyond looked down at them, eyes narrowed somewhat, maybe wondering why the hell they were still sitting down, apparently unconcerned about him. He took a step forward, before... SMACK!

Light watched in mild amusement as Aizawa landed on top of Beyond Birthday. L raised an eyebrow.

"It's raining men."

"Hallelujah!" Matsuda shouted, and they all stared at him judgementally.

OoOoO

"10 detectives, standing on a wall. 10 detectives, standing on a wall! And if one detective should accidentally fall, they'll be 9 detectives, standing on a wall. 9 detectives—"

"L, please, for the sake of my sanity."

"What sanity?"

"…"

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall; Humpty Dumpty had a great fall…"

"Near!"

OoOoO

"Light, can I keep Ryuk?" Matsuda asked, watching Ryuk fly around.

"Matsuda, people can't 'keep' Shinigami, and anyway, I am the owner of his Death Note. And do you really think he'd be safe if I let you anywhere near him? He'd be covered in litter and tinsel within about five minutes, and then write my name in his Death Note to get revenge on me."

"Fine," Matsuda pouted, then brightened, "Can I ride on his back?"

"No, Matsuda, you cannot ride on my back." Ryuk said when he came to sit next to them, "As interesting as that is, I would rather not, because then Light might start depriving me of apples unless I let him fly around."

"I'd be careful!"

"Would you?" Light asked.

"Maybe…?"

OoOoO

At this point, they were all telling jokes, except for Light, who continued to glare darkly at everything that breathed. Aizawa had checked him over to make sure Light couldn't kill them with the Death Note when least expected.

"Matsuda, you idiot, try to tell a better joke." Light said, rounding on Matsuda.

Matsuda cleared his throat. "Fine then. Ok, a task force, a model, two Shinigami, and six geniuses walk into a bar…"

Five minutes later

Matsuda looked at them expectantly. L's mouth was hanging open, showing the look of horror that Light currently felt. The same expression was mirrored on all his companion faces. Apart from Near, Aizawa had clapped his hands over Near's ear the moment Matsuda had started to tell his joke, muttering something about the 'sanctity of youth.' Near just looked confusedly around at the rest of them.

Matsuda hummed slightly as Light tried hard to rid his brain of the mental images only Matsuda could create.

"So, want to hear another one?"

"NO!"

OoOoO

"Do you think the cliff's cursed?" Misa asked as a small rabbit landed on Light's head with a little squeal.

"I don't think so," Ryuk said, glancing upwards, "I can normally tell when something's cursed."

"And so why do people keep falling off it?" Aizawa asked.

"Perhaps everyone's just really clumsy as well as oblivious…"

OoOoO

"Nice of you to drop in Mello," Matsuda said, as a loud 'thump' announced the arrival of yet another falling member of their weird group. Mello didn't respond.

Probably because he was unconscious.

Light closed his eyes out of irritation. Everyone else had gone to sleep, and guard duty had fallen to Matsuda and Light.

Light wasn't sure if he wanted to commit homicide or suicide.

"Great," Light said dourly, looking at Mello's unconscious form "Is the rope invisible or something? It's almost dawn, and we're still stuck down here!"

"We're having fun!" Matsuda protested, "Look, I packed marshmallows!" He waved a handful of marshmallows temptingly in front of Light. Light glared at him.

"The only reason I'm not getting up to hit you is that Misa's fallen asleep on my shoulder, and the longer she's silent, the better." Light told him, as Matsuda swallowed the marshmallow whole. "Otherwise…"

"Got it."

Light looked up at the lightening sky.

"What're we going to do if even more people turn up?" he asked.

Matsuda smirked and opened his mouth to reply.

"Matsuda, IF YOU SAY A WORD, I WILL SHOVE THAT MARSHMALLOW SO FAR UP YOUR ASS—"

"Light?"

Light looked down to see Misa opening her eyes blearily. He plastered on a smile to her, before turning to look at Matsuda and giving him a death glare that would make any sane man scream for his mommy. Matsuda just grinned lazily at him.

"What's wrong with the crazy serial killer?"

Light turned to send his glare to L but saw it was Near who said that and not referring to Beyond Birthday.

"L, stop being a bad influence on Near!"

The 'bad influence' yawned and stretched slightly. "I've taught you well, Near."

Light muttered incoherently under his breath, the words' L' and 'Stab' coming up alarmingly often.

He really didn't get enough credit for not being a _violent_ psychopath in this situation.

OoOoO

"I spy with my—"

"I WILL PERSONALLY _RIP_ THOSE 'LITTLE EYES' OUT OF YOUR HEAD IF YOU DON'T SHUT UP, AND THEN WHAT WILL YOU SPY? HUH? THEN YOU'LL SPY NOTHING! NOTHING EVER AGAIN!"

"…"

"Well, someone didn't get enough sleep last night…"


	4. For Want of a Rope, Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Light slowly goes more insane, the team begins to wonder what to do about their lack of food...

Light had learned something new today.

Two was company, Three was a crowd, but _Nine_ was three poorly chosen words away from an octuple murder-suicide.

Two words if one of the nine people happened to be Matsuda or Misa.

OoOoO

"So, do we have anything to eat?"

To the surprise of no-one at all, it was Matsuda who brought up the subject of food first. Apart from occasional complaints from L, the whole topic of "hey guys, we might actually be starving to death here" had been largely ignored. Now that Matsuda mentioned it, Light did feel quite hungry. It had been, what? A day since L had started a trend and slipped off the cliff. A day was definitely long enough to start feeling hungry.

"Anyone else got anything to eat?" Light asked hopefully, knowing the answer was probably no because almost everyone had only packed enough snacks to come to find Light and L. The only bag with a hiking-trip worth of food was still up above, sitting so tauntingly close to the edge and yet so far.

"Hang on," Near said, reaching for one of the bags L had brought down with him when he fell. "I thought I saw something in here when I was looking for the water bottle… wait a second… I got it!"

Near withdrew his hand from the bag triumphantly, placing his prize on the flat rock the seven of them were huddled around. It as a small, slightly furry, chunk of _something_.

Light eyed it apprehensively, his first thought is it was some small, vicious Shinigami. Then he realized this affront to nature itself had probably been created through someone's inability to properly clean the bag out.

"And what… is that?" Misa asked, peering at the object in mixed parts disgust and confusion.

"It was definitely cheese last time I checked," Near said slowly. He bent over it and sniffed it, before pushing himself away, gagging slightly. "Yeah, it's still cheese."

L looked at the 'cheese' with a level of suspicion he usually reserved for Light.

Everyone stared uncertainly at the cheese for several seconds, before Matsuda slowly stretched his hand towards it. Aizawa grabbed his forearm before he could reach it, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Matsuda, you don't want to eat that." L told him, picking up the thing between his forefinger and thumb, nose wrinkled in apparent disgust. "This thing looks pretty close to gaining _sentience_."

L hurled the hunk of cheese away, where it bounced at least two feet into the air, its momentum carrying it past a sleeping Ryuk and an unconscious Beyond Birthday. It came to a rest on an outcrop of rock at least fifty feet away, where it laid still, looking deceptively innocent.

"I never want to see Edam again in my life," Near muttered, looking slightly ill.

"I think that might have been Emmental…" Matsuda said wistfully, looking longingly at the cheese.

"At least we never have to see that particular piece again," Misa said reasonably. "It's not like cheese can move or anything."

"You know, I think that Emmental might have been beginning to…"

OoOoO

"So, we still don't have anything to eat?"

"I could cook something," Matsuda said brightly—it was never a good sign when Matsuda said anything brightly. It either meant that he was planning on doing to do something idiotic, or he _had_ done something incredibly stupid. He was trying to soften the blow of explaining why half of the task force headquarters was painted bright pink and covered in glitter. "With the moss and mushrooms here, how hard can it be?"

"No," Light said flatly. "You are not cooking. The last time that happened, you ended up setting the soup on fire."

All people who had been present for the Great Cock-a-Leekie Fire the previous week shuddered at the memory, while Misa gazed curiously at Matsuda.

"How do you set fire to something that's 99% water, Matsu?" She asked.

"Matsuda managed to find a way," Aizawa said despairingly "Matsuda always manages to find a way."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Matsuda said with a pout.

"It is a bad thing."

OoOoO

Light glared at the steadily rising sun as Matsuda started a very loud and very irritating argument with Aizawa. Mogi, who had fallen down to join them roughly an hour ago, was not-so-subtly backing away from the two of them, slowly edging his way in the general direction of anywhere that wasn't near Matsuda. Light's stomach gave a loud rumble, which was sadly not loud enough to deafen the sound of Matsuda's voice.

Well, if it came to the worst, they could always eat Matsuda.

OoOoO

"L, I'll eat that piece of fur pretending to be cheese only when pigs fly."

L sighed.

"I'll eat it," Matsuda offered. "It looked mostly edible."

Aizawa and Mogi, the unofficial babysitters to Matsuda, sighed in exasperation in perfect synch.

No matter how much Light would enjoy seeing Matsuda choke to death on some poisonous cheese—and trust him, he would enjoy it—he thought it irresponsible of him to let Matsuda eat some food that had its own mini-ecosystem growing on it. He was going to forbid Matsuda from going near the food but was interrupted by an odd mixture of sounds. A squeal, the sound of rushing air, and then a loud SPLAT. Light watched in bemusement as a small pig cartwheeled off the cliff, doing some rather spectacular flips as it did so. It hit the ground and moved no more.

Matsuda looked slowly from the pig to Light.

"When pigs fly…?"

"Shut up, Matsuda"

OoOoO

"No, L, we are not playing truth or dare."

"Fine then."

"…"

"I spy—"

"L Lawliet, I have a murder notebook, and I know your name. Shut up!"

OoOoO

"Foooooooooooooood!"

"No, Matsuda, it's mine!" L clutched the strawberry protectively to his chest with his not-broken arm, while Matsuda desperately made grabby hands in the direction of it. Where L had found a strawberry, Light for the life of him didn't know, one moment L's hands were empty, then suddenly he was holding a strawberry.

"Matsuda," Aizawa said patiently, "Leave L's strawberry alone."

"But foooooooooooooood!"

"Matsuda…"

"What the—? Aaargh!"

Matsuda made a desperate dive for the strawberry, sending Near flying in his attempt, while L's eyes just widened as Matsuda came flying towards him.

"No! Matsuda! GO AWAY!"

In the resulting scuffle, Light discovered that Matsuda knew more swear words than anyone else he knew and that L could be exceptionally vicious when strawberries were involved, injuries be damned. L was literally holding Matsuda back at arm's length with his foot, while Matsuda frantically groped at the food. With a yelp, Matsuda was freed, as he kicked L hard in the crotch. Light winced in sympathy as L groaned in pain, allowing Matsuda to dive for the berry.

There was a soft 'squish…' noise, as Matsuda landed directly on the strawberry, squishing it into the ground.

L closed his eyes once and opened them again, and Light had a strange suspicion that he was trying _very hard_ not to permit Light to use the notebook.

"You… you killed my strawberry," L said slowly, as Near and Mogi slowly backed away from him. Matsuda smiled, uneasily at him.

It was surprising how scary L could look when food was involved.

"It was only a strawberry…"

Suddenly, L grabbed a massive tree branch next to him and hurled it with enough force to hit Matsuda in the head, causing him to crumple into a heap on the ground, unmoving.

"Did you just _kill_ Matsuda?" Ryuk asked from he and a silently furious Mello had been playing cards. Light felt some hope blossom inside him, because not only would he be spared from the annoyances from the irritating officer if this was true, but L couldn't give him crap about murder.

"I think I knocked him out…" L said, squatting next to Matsuda, "Yes, he's breathing." Light's hopes deflated.

"Can you wake him up?" Misa asked.

"Probably," L said, and he began to raise his good hand to grab some water to pour on Matsuda.

"Wait!" Light said quickly, causing L to lower his hand. They all turned towards him, and he looked pleadingly up at them. He hadn't had a moment's peace since Matsuda had arrived, after all, "Can't we just… just leave him like that for a couple of minutes. Please? Just a minute or two!"

It took nearly an hour for anyone to bring up the topic of waking Matsuda again.

It took twice that amount of time for any to actually succeed.

OoOoO

Surprisingly, it was Mogi that started it.

When Matsuda had finally been returned to his usual—if a highly irritating—state, he had stayed quiet for just under two minutes. Then he had opened his mouth to say something that would probably take several years of intense therapy to get over. While everyone gave Matsuda odd looks, Mogi actually did something mildly constructive.

"Well, that's just _tree_ mendous…" he muttered.

Matsuda closed his mouth again. Everyone turned to stare at Mogi, and Light saw L's face split into a slightly evil-looking smile.

"Would you say…" he said slyly, leaning forward "that you've _stumped_ Matsuda?"

The evil grin L was wearing slowly began to grow on Light's face too.

"Do you think he's _twigged_ yet?" Light asked, gesturing at Matsuda's currently moping face.

"I don't know," Near said thoughtfully, "but I do know that his _bark_ is worse than his _bite_."

Aizawa gave an exasperated sigh. "Could we act a bit more maturely, please? We're Matsuda's _fronds_ after all…"

" _Oak_ -ay, _yew_ guys," Misa said from beside Light, " _Leaf_ him alone."

"Three in one," L said approvingly, "Very punny indeed, Misa."

"Thank you, Ryuzaki."

"I was knocked out by a tree branch," Matsuda complained from the corner he was currently sulking in "It was a highly traumatic experience. Would it kill you for a little sympathy? You're just making fun of me!"

"Aww, we've made him into a _Weeping Willow_ ," Near said, "We're sorry for making _pun_ of you."

"He's _pine_ ing." Mello taunted, deciding to contribiute after spending the hours since he arrived after waking up from the fall doing the same thing Light had been doing—glaring at everyone silently. Light had never thought he could bond with one of L's successors, but mutual hatred worked wonders.

"Maybe you should go and pack your _trunk_."

"Stop it, or I'll have to call the _copse_."

"These jokes really need to _branch_ out."

This continued for a good few minutes, and from that point onwards, whenever Matsuda looked like he was going to contribute anything to the conversation, all they'd have to do to shut him up was make a vaguely tree-related pun, which would send him back into a sulk.

It was pure bliss.

OoOoO

Night was approaching fast, unlike any sign of help whatsoever. Mello and Near were discussing how they'd take over the world if they had the chance—they were currently talking over the method they'd use for their Shinigami army. At the same time, Misa and L had joined forces in an attempt to beat Mogi at arm wrestling, but we're still managing to lose badly.

Maybe Light could start a post-apocalyptic diary, so when their bodies were finally discovered, people would know what they had gone through. He didn't expect that they'd make it through without someone being beaten savagely to death, especially since Matsuda was no longer sulking, and it was only a matter of time before Beyond Birthday woke up again.

Then again, who'd want to read about _this_?

Well, some pretty insane people in the world might actually enjoy reading about how Light was driven to murder. Then again, that story had been told a while ago, just not like this. 

_A Story of Rope and Insanity,_ he thought. _The tale of how a loyal and a rather attractive God of the New World was pushed to physical murder…_

Matsuda had started singing again.

Now _that_ sounded like a post-apocalyptic diary entry.

OoOoO

"Look!"

Light resisted the urge to look, as the last time he had glanced in the direction Near had indicated, L had stolen the knife that had formerly been on Beyond Birthday and refused to give it back for over an hour.

 _Near used to be so polite…_ Light mused inwardly. _Before he became friends with L._

Now Near was a mini-L-in-training, complete with lopsided cute-yet-creepy grins and spewing percentages at random intervals.

"Really, Light, look!"

Light glanced warily upwards, keeping one hand on the knife in case anyone tried to steal it, unsure as to whether L had managed to corrupt Mello too. He wasn't sure whether L had convinced him to come over to the 'Light-is-a-little-bitch' side yet.

"God!"

Yet another person was standing ominously close to the edge of the cliff. Light vaguely recognized him as Teru Mikami. _Oh, thank ME, a loyal follower! He'll let me out, and I can leave the rest of these people down here!_

"Teru Mikami!" Aizawa called up at the criminal prosecutor, who was carrying several bags of what Light hoped was food and rope. Mikami took a step forward, and everyone at the bottom of the cliff—apart from L, Near, and Matsuda, who seemed to be enjoying this somehow—held their breath. Mikami didn't fall. Light breathed out loudly.

"Stop!" He called up. Mikami did so, looking thoroughly confused.

"Just… throw the rope down," Light called "It's really slippy up there!"

Mikami nodded and opened his bag, withdrawing an extended length of rope from it.

"Now, throw it down."

There was the sound of rushing air as the rope landed on the ground.

Light resisted the urge to sob.

"You were supposed to tie the rope to something first," he said through gritted teeth.

"Could you pass the rope up to me?" Mikami asked.

"What do you think?!" Light yelled.

Mikami cocked his head to one side, the effort of actually thinking, taking up most of his mental processing.

"I know!" Mikami announced, "I'll climb down and get the rope!"

Aizawa groaned and turned away, while L passed Matsuda some money (had they been making bets?!) "Just don't… don't accidentally fall!" Light said, not really expecting Mikami would actually make it down in one piece.

Mikami looked at Light.

"Don't accidentally fall?" He asked.

"Don't accidentally fall." Light repeated.

Mikami gazed thoughtfully at the cliff. "Don't accidentally fall…" he muttered quietly to himself. "Don't _accidentally_ fall…"

And so, Mikami leaped off the cliff.

His bags separated from him as he fell, his body landing with a sickening crunch on the ground, and seeing as his head had hit a sharp rock and had been caved in, it didn't take a genius to know he was dead.

"Where do you get your followers from?" Matsuda asked incredulously, "Do you select them for their natural stupidity or something?"

"At least we've got food," Misa said, trying to be optimistic about the situation. "At least his death wasn't in vain… much."

Light weighed up what the food had cost them. A couple of days' worth of food versus the life of one of his followers who seemed to view his own stupidity as a positive attribute. Was it really worth it? It only took him a couple of seconds to come up with the answer. Yes, it was worth it.

Completely.


	5. For Want of a Rope, Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team discusses weird topics about Wammy's House

_Day 3. Night is approaching fast. Mello succumbed to hunger and ate the cheese, and has yet to regain consciousness._ _Near and L are having their injuries bound by Mogi, the one with somewhat actual medical training._ _Misa has begun to talk to a nearby rock, claiming that it's really called Gelus and is just a misunderstood puffskein, whatever the hell that is._ _Rem came to check on us, but Ryuk talked her into joining him in playing cards with Aizawa._ _Matsuda has run out of drinking songs and has moved onto nursery rhymes._

_Someone, please, help us._

OoOoO

"Come on, L, tell us!"

"I need to preserve some loyalty!" L protested, despite the combined pleas of Near, Misa and Matsuda while Aizawa looked on with interest. "I can't just tell you everything I know, it's not even my secret to tell."

"Please!" Near begged, "It's literally been the bane of existence since I first stepped foot in Wammy's House, you've no idea how many times I've lain awake in bed wondering about it, and I know for a fact that you know the answer, so stop stalling!"

"But—"

"Ryuzaki," Misa said pleadingly. "It's an important question, it's something we've all been wondering. Isn't it irresponsible for you not to tell us the answer if you know it? And don't try to deny the fact that you know it—you've more or less admitted it already."

L turned despairingly to Aizawa, sole responsible member of the task force. "Aizawa," he pleaded. "Isn't there something in the police code about peer pressure?"

"No," Aizawa said, "Even if there was, I want to know the answer to this too."

"Mello wouldn't—"

"Mello gave his life for you, L," Matsuda said, "The least you can do is honor his memory and tell us!"

"Mello isn't dead…"

Matsuda ignored him "It is your duty to the world, L, to tell us. We need to know. We won't judge them differently because of it, so just tell us. If not for the world, then for the sake of humanity itself!"

L sighed in exasperation, "Matsuda…"

Seeing that his motivational speech wasn't affecting L, Matsuda quickly changed track "Near, quick, give him the puppy eyes!"

"What? No! That's unfair, Near!" L exclaimed as Near looked solemnly at L, eyes round and glassy. L huffed and glared at them all, and Light smiled smugly. For once, they had stopped picking on him to join forces and discover the secret they had been wondering over for the past few months, if not years. L continued to glare at Near, who was still sending puppy eyes at L.

"Why did I teach you how to do that?" L complained as Near continued to stare "Anyway, it's not going to work Near, I'm more or less immune—"

A single tear rolled down Near's face.

"Damnit!" L shouted, turning away from Near and his annoyingly effective puppy eyes. "Leave me alone. Light-Kun help!"

Light raised an eyebrow. "Because you helped me so much when everyone was harassing me about Mikami." He gestured to the dead body which had been moved off the the side next to where they had placed the cheese from hell, "Of course, I should definitely return the favor and help you… not." Light glared at L, "As God of the New World, I demand that you tell us."

"But—"

"L…"

"I'll give you a crate of apples!" Ryuk offered, and Rem looked at him,

"No, you wouldn't."

"No, I wouldn't, but he doesn't have to know that right now." 

"Pleeeeeee—"

"Just leave me alone!"

"Come on!"

"—eeeeeee—"

"Matsuda, shut up!"

"Just one little secret!"

"-eeeeeee-"

"We won't tell anyone!"

"L, we're your friends."

"—eeeeeee—"

"Ryuzaki!"

"—eeeeeeease!"

"FINE!" L yelled, causing Ryuk to jump and drop his apple into the newly resurrected fire, where it burnt up with a soft 'phup' "YES, YOU'RE ALL RIGHT, WATARI CUT HIS MUSTACHE LIKE THAT BECAUSE HE LOST A BET, ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?!"

Light smirked. "Yes."

OoOoO

"So, Light, do you have any relatives who are as insane as you?" Matsuda asked, looking at the luckily and conveniently still unconscious Beyond Birthday. "Because as far as I know, they're all a joy except for you."

"I think I had a second cousin once removed who wasn't," Light said, furrowing his eyebrows as he tried to remember. "Hang on, no… wait. He became a banker, didn't he?"

"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'unresolved plot point.'"

"L, stop breaking the fourth wall."

OoOoO

"So Near, run this by me again?"

"Fine, Matsuda," Near said as if talking to a very slow, very obnoxious 4-year-old. Or Matsuda, since the two were more or less synonymous.

"Okay, so Beyond Birthday is quite insane, isn't he? He horribly mutilated people. He's also got a thing for jam."

"Yes, Matsuda, Beyond Birthday is 'quite insane,' and likes jam." Light said through gritted teeth. He was going to have to spend another night listening to Matsuda's questions. They'd barely made it through the last one in one piece.

"And Mello is totally okay with killing people to solve his problems, and he also has a weird addiction to chocolate." 

"Yes."

"Near doesn't give a crap about anything except his toys."

"Correct," Near replied.

"And L loves all things sugar, and loves using Death Row Inmates as resources."

"Yeah, so?" L asked, "Those kinds of criminals are the best human resources." 

"So..." Matsuda crossed his arms, "Matt helps Mello without questions, and he's got a thing for smoking and gaming."

"What's your point?" Light asked.

"I think Wammy's House is the House of Addictions and Zero Value For Life!"

"What?" Near said, losing whatever track he had of the conversation up to that point, which admittedly hadn't been that much.

"The Wammy's House curse," Matsuda said, in what he obviously thought was a wise voice "If you live in Wammy's House, you will have no value for the lives of others, and have a weird addiction or two."

Light goggled at Matsuda in disbelief "Matsuda, how stupid can you get? No, don't answer that!" He added hastily as Matsuda opened his mouth to respond.

"That's what you think," Matsuda said, in a conspiratory whisper, "But the evidence is there."

L gazed at Matsuda. "You really are as stupid as we thought, aren't you?"

"Thank you."

"Not a compliment."

"Then, screw you."

"How are you still alive, Matsuda?" Light asked, "I thought we had a natural selection to deal with people like you!"

Matsuda just gazed at Light in confusion. Light shook his head and turned away from Matsuda. 

To be honest, the gene pool needed more than a little chlorine.

OoOoO

"Hey, Light, you do know Near turned your hair pink two hours ago while you slept?"

"He did _what_!?"


	6. For Want of a Rope, Part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Homicide or suicide? Light doesn't know which to pick.

"Fix it now."

"No."

"Personally, I think the color suits you."

"Shut up, Matsuda," Light growled, running his fingers through his pink hair. L was still snickering immaturely and refusing to turn it back to its usual—and if he did say so himself dashingly handsome—auburn color. This was going as well as could be expected: shit.

"The magenta does bring out the color of your eyes."

"L, you do know that I am currently in possession of a very sharp object."

"Not your brain then," L quipped, before biting his thumb, "Actually that's a lie, but you get what I mean." 

Light gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to stab said sharp object into L. But he didn't voice it aloud, because, at some point, Matsuda had started a little "Lawlight" fan club, and would likely consider the sharp object to be something other than the knife in Light's hand.

"Fix. It."

"L, maybe you should," Aizawa said reluctantly. "He's not going to stop asking, and I would like to get some sleep."

"It's dawn!"

"Yeah, but Light woke us all up when he pitched a hissy fit over his pink hair, didn't he?"

"I did not have a 'hissy fit'!" Light said with a scowl, which he directed at the smirking Mello, "What if L messed with your hair?"

Mello lifted his hands protectively towards his hair. "It'd be the last thing he ever did," he answered without a trace of humor. Near and L made eye contact, Near sending L a knowing smirk which L returned with equal fervor before they both turned to look at Mello, equally evil grins on their faces.

 _Oh no,_ Light thought wearily. _What are they planning? What if they do something to Mello's hair, and then Mello kills Near, and L kills Mello, and then the task force tries to avenge Mello. I bet that Misa would somehow get me involved, and I'd end up getting caught in the middle of the crossfire and_ — _after they accidentally manage to wake Beyond Birthday up, again_ — _we all get killed, and then Watari would find out about it and kill him._

Mello's hair was capable of starting a civil war.

"L," Misa said from Light's side, cutting off his slightly hysterical vision of his near future "Mello is more than capable of murder."

L shrugged noncommittally, the evil gleam still in his and Near's eyes, which, _oh no,_ was now in Matsuda's eyes.

"So, will you fix my hair?"

"Nope."

"L, I'm going to beat you to death with this stick of celery."

"Pretty sure that's impossible."

"Well, we'll find out," Light replied with a glare, "and even if it doesn't work, it'll be fun." 

L stared at him, no fucks to be found, "Do it, bitch, I dare you."

It took several of Light's more creative death threats for L to finally agree to pay to fix this, ("Fix my hair L or I swear to ME I'll shove this octopus so far down your throat you'll be shitting calamari for weeks!"). A further fifteen more to get L to stop laughing maniacally at the sight of his pink hair ("I really hope you brought money with you because I'm pretty sure that hell asks for rent in advance"). When L had finally calmed down to the point where he could breathe again, it took a couple more to 'convince' L it was in his best interests to fix Light's hair, ("Do you know how stupid you're going to look with a knife permanently stuck in your ass?")

Even now, Light was still glaring at L, wondering exactly why he had forgiven him for any of the other crap L had done to him over the years.

 _Sometime, somewhere, L must have done something that I'm allowed to kill him for as Kira._ Light thought. _Could I claim self-defense if I murdered him out of sheer irritation?_

Sadly, the answer was probably no. Light wondered when that had stopped him before, but seeing as everyone except his father knew his secret, he would never get away with it. 

OoOoO

Light was being driven up the wall by the combined efforts of L, Near, and Matsuda.

Actually, no, if he was being driven up the wall, there would at least be a chance that he'd be driven so far up it that he'd eventually get to the top of the cliff and be able to run away as fast as humanly possible.

 _Kill me._ Light thought dully, as Ryuk pulled out another deck of cards. _Kill me now before I beat Matsuda to death with the Ace of Clubs. Or maybe just a club. Either way is okay with me._

Then he wondered at that point he had become so miserable that he would give up his dreams as God of the New World if it meant getting out of here one way or another.

"So," Matsuda said brightly "Who's up for strip poker?"

As Light got his answer to the previous question, he wondered which was a quicker mode of murder: poison, or massive exsanguination.

OoOoO

"Urrrggg…"

Once again, it was this sound that alerted Light to the fact Beyond-Birthday slash magnet for unconsciousness was once again waking up. He wondered whether it was too much to hope for that another passing person would conveniently fall off the cliff and knock him out while plummeting to their death. He wasn't sure if he could cope with having to deal with Beyond Birthday right now, on top of the events of the last two hours. He never again wanted to see Matsuda's pe—

Well… let's just say that it had been a very stressful day.

And it was still morning.

He could practically feel his heart leaping for joy in his chest.

"Want me to deal with him?" Mogi asked absently, piling sand and rocks onto a sleeping Matsuda's head. Well, by sleeping, Light meant 'violently-knocked-unconscious-by-Light-by-a-large-stick-of-celery-about-half-an-hour-ago-after-revealing-the-whole-McMeal-to-the-group-at-large,' but hey! The two phrases were more or less synonymous, weren't they?

Light opened his mouth to reply, No, he obviously would much rather be mutilated horribly by L's crazy double. It still weirded him out to no end that not only was Beyond Birthday lucky enough to have been _born_ with the eyes, but L and Beyond were in no way related. Then, a weird whooshing noise interrupted him before he could do anything more than sigh in exasperation.

WHOOOOO0OoooO00000o0oooo000oO0Oooo—CRUNCH

Light looked from the newly re-unconscious Beyond Birthday to the giant bullfrog that had apparently created a small landslide before landing on Beyond Birthday's head, covering the ground around him with dust, dirt, and bits of the frog.

"Now, this is just getting ridiculous…"

OoOoO

"I spy—"

"Matsuda, don't make me tie you up and gag you."

"Ooh, kinky."

"Before you make another sound, you should know that I will not hesitate to sacrifice you to the Sun God Ra."

OoOoO

"Near, why the hell are you building a scale model of the task force headquarters out of rotten tomatoes and celery?"

"Hmm?" Near looked up, "Oh, we ran out of carrots, so I had to improvise and use celery instead."

"And why exactly are you building a scale model of headquarters out of vegetables?"

"Fruit."

"What did you say, Rem?"

"Tomatoes are fruit, not vegetables."

"Yeah, but celery's a vegetable, so the point still stands, why the Lucifer-in-a-fire-and-brimstone-cage hell is Near—"

"Hang on, I thought celery was a fruit!" Ryuk said, turning from his game with Mello.

"No, it's a vegetable," Aizawa said, "it isn't sweet or juicy like fruit is"

"Yeah, Near's right, it's a vegetable." Mello agreed.

"But it grows above ground… and… how can that… what… so…"

"I think you broke him, Mello."

"How can anyone be that passionate over a type of fruit?" Misa wondered.

"Vegetable."

Light sighed in exasperation as Misa began to argue why celery was a fruit, while L stared blankly into the fire with the air of a man who had realized that his whole life was a lie. Light repeated his earlier sigh of exasperation as Matsuda stopped all chances of an intelligent discussion by attempting to ram a stick of celery up Aizawa's nose. Fruit/vegetable/whatever it was, Aizawa didn't appreciate having it inserted into his nostril, and maturely retaliated by chucking a nearby jar at him, which promptly shattered, showering Matsuda with gherkins. Matsuda seemed to be in a pickle.

Or was covered with them…or whatever.

And Light still didn't know why there was an animal/vegetable/mineral replica of headquarters standing in the corner.

OoOoO

Light was not glaring at L.

Yes, this was now an important enough event in Light's life that not only did it require to be pointed out, but it also managed to earn itself its own separate paragraph, where it could rest, feeling smug about its choices in life. For a short little sentence doing nothing more than pointing out what Light actually wasn't doing, it had done remarkably well or itself, even gaining a little mini-paragraph afterward celebrating its achievements in life. Maybe it'd also win the sentence-equivalent of an Oscar, perhaps nicking the one Leonardo Dicaprio really deserves—okay, I think we're getting bogged down by this metaphor—forget the fact that Light wasn't glaring. No, wait, that's the whole point I had that sentence, isn't it? Fuck. Okay, I'll just start again, and we'll all pretend this lengthy paragraph didn't happen. Deal?

Deal.

Light was not glaring at L.

He wasn't entirely sure why he wasn't glaring at L at the moment, as he was pretty sure he _should_ be glaring at L for some reason, which would eventually come to him, given time. Maybe it was because L had managed to use that stick he had knocked Matsuda out with a while back to get all the apples to fall off the tree just above them before Ryuk could realize that tree was even there. And Light was currently surrounded by about twenty apple cores and the remnants of what was once his dignity.

Though it was probably Light's fault for eating twenty apples at once, Light still felt that he could blame L for his current situation.

He glared at L.

"L," he whined, "Your apples made me ill."

"You didn't have to eat them all."

"Matsuda dared me to."

"And of course, you had to do what Matsuda told you to do, didn't you?"

"Well… yeah, actually."

L gave him a 'you are crazy' look, before returning to his conversation with Mello. Matsuda (a.k.a, the devil incarnate) gave Light an evil smile that made Light momentarily forget his apple-induced stomach ache. What was Matsuda planning to do—?

"I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with 'C'"

Fuck.

Urge to kill, rising. Expected Lundy 964 by 0700 tomorrow.

Oh wait, that was the shipping forecast.


	7. For Want of a Rope, Part 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finale of For Want of a Rope arc, this chapter is also known as For Want of Some Sobriety

_Update: We ran out of sugary sustenance. I don't think L will last the night. Too soon to plan celebrations? Rem thinks so._

OoOoO

A high pitched squeal tore through the relative quiet of the evening with all the masculinity of a ballerina soaring through the air with rainbows and pink and purple glitter shooting out of her ass. Light winced, wondering whether the screech had managed to take out most of the world's population of bats, before turning around to look for the source of the noise.

 _Please be a monster,_ he prayed silently, _I'm allowed to kill monsters, just don't let it be L, or Near, or—_

Mello.

 _Goddammit_.

A very distressed looking Mello was standing over a nearby puddle, staring into it with the utmost horror, so much so, in fact, that Light quickly glanced into the pool to make sure that it wasn't actually a monster of some sort.

No such luck, though.

There was a stifled laugh from beside him, and Light turned back around to see L and Near smirking at each other, sending occasional evil grins at Mello's back. Images of the possible consequences of whatever the hell they had done this time flashed through Light's head, a disturbing number including fire and explosions.

"Ryuzaki," Misa said slowly "What did you do?"

Mello seemed to busy staring in abject horror at his face to explain whatever had happened, and so it was Near who finally complied and answered Misa's question.

"Well, we thought that Mello's hair was getting a bit ridiculous, and he looked a little bit like a chick." Near began, with the air of one discussing the weather instead of what was basically the most significant part of Mello's personality barring chocolate and inferiority complex. "So we thought we'd," Near gestured at himself and L "would help him out and give him a free haircut while he slept."

"Oh, God…" Aizawa moaned, bringing a hand up to his face in what was either horror or exasperation—it was kind of hard to tell with the appendage in the way.

Light mentally seconded those two words and added on one of his own that began with the letter 'f' and rhymed with 'duck.'

Looking closer at the back of Mello's head, as Mello had stopped staring at the puddle and was glaring at L with a glint of what was probably murder in his eyes. Light had to suppress a snort of laughter—he wasn't suicidal; he wasn't going to laugh at Mello's hair. Much. The vast majority of his hair was sheared off at the front, replaced with a haircut even a mildly unattractive hedgehog would find difficult to like, despite the resemblance.

Mello continued to glare at L and Near, and without speaking a single word, the smirks on both of their faces died quicker than Mitt Romney's dreams on election night, as if for once, they'd finally grasped what they had done.

Mello took a step forward.

"Ah," L said, as Near backed away rapidly on his makeshift crutches, "I might not have thought this through…"

OoOoO

This was not good.

Mello was _not_ killing L and Near.

Now on a typical day, Light would say that this was probably a good thing—depending, of course, on how irritating L had been during the day in question.

But _this_ …

Mello was sitting in the corner, quietly talking to L. Near had wisely fled before Mello could get too close, expecting—as Light had—to be murdered instead of spoken to. L's grin just kept growing larger and larger with each passing second. Some small, sensible part of Light's brain wondered whether he should stop this—whatever _this_ actually was. But the much more extensive, lazier part of his brain continued to stare with increasing trepidation at two of Wammy's Musketeers of Doom and Destruction, the third still probably hiding somewhere.

It was like when you accidentally brushed against a pencil while working, and the writing tool slowly begins to roll towards the edge of the table. You know that you should probably just reach out and grab it before it falls off the desk and you have to expend much more effort to get it back again, but you're just too lazy, and you watch that pencil edge ever nearer to the desk's end, as a vague sense of alarm begins to fill you.

L nodded once, and quicker than you could say, "Can we panic now?" the two shook hands.

That looked suspiciously like a deal being made to Light.

Light supposed the pencil had just fallen with a 'clatter,' before rolling so far away from the desk that it had managed to fall into the deep depths of hell itself.

OoOoO

The next game of I-Spy that was initiated, this time by a bored Mogi, and was quickly and violently interrupted by Light, who had thrown a stick of celery so hard at Mogi that missed his head but shot straight into the air. It took out a passing seagull with an indignant squawk that almost rivaled Mello's earlier shriek in pitch and loudness. Light was just beginning to wonder whether it would be an abuse of his power if he declared I-Spy to be punishable by a slow and painful death when he heard the sound of running water, along with the sound of liquid being drunk in large quantities. The sense of general doom and despair that usually heralded the arrival of Matsuda suddenly started to spike, and Light looked up, speculating as to whether Beyond had woken up and managed to explode Aizawa or something.

_Oh no._

L had alcohol.

 _L_ had _alcohol_.

Light's eyes slid from the slightly chipped mug L was holding to the open bag. He had forgotten that Mikami's bag had had some booze in it, which none of them had touched to not be a bad influence on Near.

L gave another burp, and then pulled out a goddamn firework, using a match to set it off. The indignant seagull from earlier gave one last, desperate squawk before exploding in a shower of feathers with the force of a small bomb.

Light's glare only increased as a bit of seagull gut splattered onto his nose, though L only seemed mildly amused by it. Mello poured some more of the liquid into L's mug, grinning widely at Light.

He was going to _kill_ Mello.

OoOoO

"This is your fault Mello, it's all your fault!"

"That's not fair! He wouldn't pay to have my hair returned to normal unless I managed to satisfy his boredom! What was I supposed to do? Go around looking like a reject from the porcupine species for the rest of my life?"

"That would just be an added bonus."

Unsurprisingly, mixing a sugar addict and booze did not end well for any parties involved. Although at first everyone except Light had found L's drunken rambling moderately hilarious, that had stopped the moment L accidentally—they assumed, though his grin while doing it had said otherwise—set fire to the remains of the seagull. Shockingly, the smell of roasted bird carcass was far from alluring, and the general level of amusement of their group had gone down as fast as the offer of a bacon sarnie at a bar mitzvah.

"I don't see what you're complaining about," Matsuda said, stretching, "L looks quite happy to me."

Light sighed in exasperation. Seriously, just because something made you happy when you were drunk did not mean it was a good thing to do. He was pretty sure that going on a swing while drunk might actually be quite fun. But he was equally sure it probably wasn't a good idea to go on one while drunk. How likely was it that a drunken swinging session would end with broken bones, blood, or fire? Probably all three if he was especially pessimistic.

Matsuda, however, didn't seem to grope this relatively simple concept.

"Look, Matsuda" Light began, "Imagine that you're on a swing, and—"

"Shhhhhhh,"

"What, Matsuda?"

"Don't interrupt, I'm on a swing."

Light stared in utter disbelief as Matsuda closed his eyes, swaying backward and forwards slightly with a blissful look on his face. Light raised his eyebrows in exasperation and irritation.

"Matsuda, why don't you go stargazing in some cave or something?"

"Okay."

OoOoO

Somewhere in the deepest and dunnest part of the universe. Deep underground in the pit of fire and screaming, a couple of blocks down from the river of pained souls—if you looked closely, you could just about make out the pencil from earlier bobbing up and down in the brimstones like some satanic rubber duck—a demon looked around. It turned to its fellow agent of evil, and asked, "Is it just me, or is it a bit nippy down here?"

Because hell, sure as hell, was freezing over.

Absolutely nothing had happened.

For over six hours, no arguments, no games of I-fricking-Spy, no fire, and even no lethal stabbings with fruit/vegetables.

Light gazed cautiously at L, who was making blue bubbles rise high up into the sky with the help of a bubble wand, where they would hang for a few seconds like slightly transparent moons until they popped. Misa and Near were playing hangman in the dirt, as Aizawa and Mogi were arm wrestling. Was it too much to hope that the rest of the evening would remain this peaceful? The previous couple of times, these moments of calm had turned out to be refueling stops for the madness of their lives before it returned more potent than ever before. Maybe this time it would stay calm. Light thought their relative peace was probably due to Matsuda having wandered off to who knows where.

Of course, it was all too good to last.

And so, the quiet of the dusk was broken.

And absolutely no-one was surprised at this.

And of course, it was L who did the disrupting.

Everyone was even less surprised at this.

L had stopped making bubbles and was instead gazing pensively at a giant and fat insect—that reminded Light inexplicably of Watari for some reason—sitting on a rock, looking nervously up at the drunk greatest detective the world had ever seen.

"Do ants ever get sad that they're ants?" L asked.

Light groaned.

Was it too late to choose homicide over suicide?

OoOoO

It turned out that when L got drunk, not only did he have the tendency to explode passing bids, he also liked to ask 'the important questions in life.' However, what L called 'the important questions in life' were what Light called 'what the hell is wrong with you?' questions. Somewhere between being asked if fruit screamed in pain when you ate it but beyond your range of hearing, and being asked what would happen if hair bled when cut, Light had begun to give up what little hope for humanity he had left. That wasn't very much, admittedly, otherwise, he wouldn't have started using the Death Note.

He should have seen this coming. Seeing as L was a severe sugar addict, he needed _something_ to give him a buzz. Light did wonder what exactly that booze had been if L had drunk enough of it to get intoxicated. Or L was just a lightweight, that was possible too.

"What if you are the butter?"

"What?"

"WHAT THEN?!"

"What?" Mello turned from where he had been sulking at the current state of his hair.

"WHAT IF EVERYONE IS BUTTER!? I'M JUST AN EMPTY TUB OF MARGARINE IN A SEA OF BUTTER!"

Ryuk and Rem looked to each other, "What?"

"WHAT IF SOMEONE SPREADS YOU ON TOAST?!"

"You know what?" Light banged his head against the edge of the cliff a couple times, "I give up."

OoOoO

Making a mental note to find a spell to raise the dead so he could kill Matsuda over and over again as soon as he reappeared, Light continued to listen to L's blabbering. Near still seemed to find the whole situation quite amusing, and after being forbidden from drinking by Aizawa, he had decided to just settle down and watch L rambling. 

However, sometime after the inexplicable butter rant, it seemed that Aizawa had given up trying to keep everyone sensible and had gone to sleep, muttering about how he wasn't paid to babysit as well as be an officer. He was quickly followed by Misa, while Near had kept awake, probably to watch Light suffer.

"Do you know any strangers, Light-Kun?"

"AWasfxdDdDADfbgh"

"What?"

OoOoO

"Hey, Light, why can't you get gloves for your head?"

OoOoO

"Hey Light, if someone accidentally killed you while trying to stop you from committing suicide, would your death be suicide or not?"

OoOoO

"Hey Light, why does 12am come before 11am?"

OoOoO

"Oh wait, hats. Huh."

OoOoO

"Hey Light, is it still murder if you resurrect the person afterward? Can that even be done?"

OoOoO

"Hey Light, why is it AN hour, not A hour? And while we're on the subject, why is it A unicycle not AN unicycle?"

OoOoO

"Hey Light, why is it a pair of trousers when there's only one set?"

OoOoO

"Hey Light, how come 'fat chance' and 'slim chance' mean the same thing?"

OoOoO

"Hey, Light, why don't sheep shrink when it rains?"

OoOoO

"Hey, Light, why are you getting the knife out?"

OoOoO

Light hadn't signed up for this.

When he first decided that he was going to be God, he knew it wasn't going to be all smiles and roses. He knew it was likely that he'd be hurt at some point, but _this_?!

If L said "Hey Light" one more time, Light was going to kill someone.

He needed some time alone.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position—instead of the lying down wishing for death position he had adopted earlier—trying hard not to look at L, as he was _this close_ to exploding in a ball of irritation and rage.

"Trying to leave?" Near said, grinning lazily. Near had seemed immune to the physical incarnation of irritation that was L, and had even enjoyed it somehow, despite the exasperated looks Mello kept sending him, "Can I come too?"

"No."

"Oh, come on!" Near said, "You can't just walk off without us!"

"Watch me."

Light stood up.

Near pushed himself into a standing position, too, and grabbed his crutches. At this point, he just seemed to be used to the pain in his leg.

"Come on, Light," Near said in what he clearly thought was a coaxing tone, "I won't annoy you that much."

"That much," Light said in disbelief. "That much! All you've done since I fell off that bloody cliff is annoy me! You and Matsuda! And let's not get into how L seems to be attempting to drive me into insanity. Or actually, let's! First, it was the jokes, then it was messing with my hair, and now the stupid questions. AND THAT'S NOT EVEN INCLUDING THE FUCKING I-SPY! FOR THE LAST HOUR, IT'S BEEN 'HEY LIGHT' THIS, OR 'WHAT IF' THAT, AND YOU KNOW WHAT, I PHYSICALLY CANNOT TAKE IT ANYMORE! I DON'T KNOW WHY TREES DON'T HAVE TAILS, OR WHY FRICKING SOCKS DON'T HAVE INDIVIDUAL HOLES FOR EACH TOE! AND YOU KNOW WHAT? WHEN WE FINALLY GET BACK TO THE CITY, I'M GOING TO BLOW THIS FRICKING CLIFF TO KINGDOM COME! SO PLEASE JUST GO AWAY, AND LET ME HAVE ONE FRICKING MOMENT OF PEACE! PLEASE, I JUST WANT ONE MOMENT OF PEACE WHERE I'M NOT IN DANGER OF EXPLODING OR LOSING MY HAIR! PLEASE!"

There was one glorious moment of silence.

"I spy—"

There was an inhumane scream as Light launched himself at L, who looked appropriately scared for about a second, before moving just out of the way. Light flew into the wall of the cliff and jumped up quickly, heart pumping fast, looking around for L. He spotted him about six feet —apparently running while drunk was not a good idea. As with swinging. 

As Light flew through the air, he was stopped by Misa, making a grab for his legs—she had woken up after all the shouting. Unsurprisingly, this did nothing except knock Light off course, sending him straight into a sleepy Aizawa who had just awoken. The congealed mass of people that was Misa, Light, and Aizawa landed with a THUMP onto Mogi and Mello, who were sitting on the other side of the rock to Near, sending Near shooting upwards like a seesaw. Near flew six feet straight up and about ten feet left. Luckily, his fall was softened by L, who had seemed to be trying to run away from the chaos. With a shrill screech, Ryuk joined into the fray. Yes, Shinigami always helped matters.

Just a few feet away from the writhing group of people, Matsuda walked in, whistling absently.

"Hey, you know that you can't actually stargaze from inside a cave anywa—WHOA!"

OoOoO

"Guys… what are you doing at the bottom of a cliff?"

Light let out a laugh of relief and looked up to see a helicopter above them that he hadn't had enough hope to think was coming for them. At the top, they saw Matt and Soichiro, meaning Watari was probably flying. Matsuda looked up as well, having been tied up and gagged by Light two hours prior.

Mello rolled his eyes, "Light and L fell in, and we went looking for them."

Matt dropped a rope latter, coming down to help carry Near. Light beamed when he asked, "Want help getting out?"

They all climbed up, and Matt helped a not-quite-sober L up once he had gotten Near comfortable, and then went back down to get Beyond Birthday. They were finally free. Now to build a fence around that entire cliff. 

Soichiro rolled his eyes once he heard the story, "Why am I not surprised? Did they drive you up the wall?"

Light groaned. "No. If they had driven me up the wall, I might have been able to escape and run away."

They all laughed, but Light was dead serious and not amused in the slightest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's For Want of a Rope, but there is much randomness to come. Let me know what kind of weirdness y'all want to see.


	8. Detectives With Hats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based of Llamas With Hats, episode one. This will not be a thing with the whole LwH series, just one or two of the episodes.

"KIIIIIIIIIRA! There is a dead FBI agent in the moonbase!" Since the Kira case was basically resolved, they had taken to calling the task force headquarters the moonbase. L was pointing down at Raye Penber's body.

Light looked down at the body in surprise, and L wondered why he was wearing a green beanie. Then again, L was also wearing a red hat with a little yellow flower because he felt like it, so he wasn't going to question it.

"Oh...hey... How did he get here?" Light asked, and while Soichiro may have believed that, L didn't believe it at all since Beyond wasn't here right now.

"Kira! What did you do?!"

"Me? Uh, I didn't do this!"

L glared, "Explain what happened, Kira!"

"I've never seen him before in my life."

"That's a lie! Why did you kill this person, Kira?!"

Light put his hands on his hips, "I do not kill people. That is...that is my least favorite thing to do." L sent him a look that said he was fully aware this was bullshit. It didn't help matters that Ryuk was standing right behind Light and watching this unfold, and Light had the Death Note  _ in his hand. _

"Tell me, Light, exactly what you were doing before I got back."

"Okay," Light put a finger under his chin, "I was upstairs."

"Okay..."

"I was sitting in my room."

"Yes?"

"Reading a book."

"Go on..." 

"And, uh, well, this guy walked in," he gestured to the corpse on the ground.

"Okay..."

"So I went up to him."

"Yes..."

"And... I asked for his name and wrote it in my Death Note."

A beat. L took a deep breath.

"KIIIIIIIIIIIRAA! That  _ kills _ people!"

"O-Oh!" Light wasn't even pretending anymore, sounding more sarcastic than anything, "I didn't know that."

"How could you not know that?!"

"Yeah, I'm in the wrong here," Light said, and then L noticed something else entirely, a whole new problem. 

"What happened to his hands?"

"What?"

"His hands. W-Why are they missing?" To his surprise, Light was genuinely confused about that.

"I actually don't know." He looked in the notebook, "I just said heart attack."

The two looked to each other in both parts acknowledgment and disgust, as they went to find Beyond Birthday. L could have sworn it was Matt's turn to watch him, and that gamer was going to have a serious talking to if they turned out to be right.

They found Beyond in the kitchen, eating some meat.

"Why are Raye Penber's hands missing?" L asked, not actually asking a question, instead making it known to his other that he knew, and wanted an explanation.

"I...cut the hands up. And ate them."

"BEYOND!" Both Light and L shouted in synch.

"What?" Beyond asked, taking a bite of a finger, "I was hungry, and when you crave hands..."

"Why on Earth would you do that?!" Light asked.

Beyond shrugged, "I was hungry for hands, give me a break." 

"BEYOND!" L repeated, feeling like he was going to be sick.

"My stomach was making the rumblies—"

"Beyond!"

"—that only hands would satisfy."

L smacked his forehead, unable to bring himself to even be shocked when his current company was two serial killers and a bored Shinigami, "What is wrong with you, Beyond?"

"I....uh... well, I kill people, and I eat hands. That—That's two things."


	9. Free Candy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team celebrates Halloween

"Boy, it sure is autumn," Sayu said, sitting on a park bench with Mello and Matt. Things had been extremely awkward for a while, but once Mello paid the thousands of dollars for Sayu's therapy, they formed a weird friendship.

"Good riddance to summer." Mello agreed, "The fall season is the best."

Sayu shrugged, "I'm just thankful it's cold enough that I can wear tights now, it means I don't have to shave my legs."

Matt nodded, "And the best part is the leaves are falling off the trees so nobody can hide in them and get the drop on me." Both Mello and Sayu gave Matt an odd look,

"Wait, does that happen?" Sayu asked, turning to Mello, "You're the kidnapper here, does that happen?" Mello shrugged.

"No," Matt replied, "But now I know what can't happen."

"Has it _ever_ happened, though," Mello asked in exasperation, "In the historical record?"

Matt threw his hands in the air, "If I don't worry about things, just because they haven't happened yet, then what would I be?"

"Mentally sound?"

"Unprepared, Sayu!" The three of them decided to head inside since it was getting dark, unaware Beyond Birthday had been watching them from a tree.

"They're learning." He looked down at the ground, "How do I get down?"

OoOoO

After Watari revealed they had an entire room full of costumes, L, Light, and Matsuda had taken it upon themselves to clean it out to use this room for who knows what else.

"You know, I used to take Halloween really seriously," Matsuda said as he folded some dresses and stuffed them into a box to either get donated or go in storage.

Light sent him a somewhat cheerful look, "No, kidding, me too." L cocked his head, deciding to stop stuffing costumes in cases and watch this conversation unfold.

"I always had the best costumes." Matsuda reminisced. Light rolled his eyes,

"Oh, I spent most of my time making things explode in the backyard."

Matsuda sighed, "Now I wear whatever I can cobble together from here."

"To be fair, who else has a literal wardrobe department?" L asked, and Matsuda jumped up,

"Hey, do you guys want to have a Halloween party?"

"That's actually not a bad idea." Light shrugged, "We have so many props and so much stuff that we need something to do with."

L sighed, shaking his head a little, "I already feel bad for the housekeepers."

Matsuda was jumping up and down with glee, "Yes! Okay, check it. We'll do the party here, and then the place will look nice for the trick-or-treaters." Light crossed his arms,

"What makes you think we're going to get trick-or-treaters here?"

"Bold of you to assume I would give any amount of my candy to those screaming brats." L replied, and they both knew the quirky detective would fight children for sweets without shame. "Besides, nobody takes their kids' house to house anymore. People go to malls and places like that."

"Exactly." Matsuda was waving his arms around as he tried to make a point to the two super-geniuses in front of him, "Places of business. We're a business."

"This is barely a place of business." L put his hands in his pockets, "These days, it's actually more of a glorified clubhouse."

Light nodded, "And what parent would let their child go down a narrow, unlit underground driveway in some weird building?"

"Yeah," L agreed, "This place isn't really the kind of area people take their kids to, anyway." Matsuda frowned,

"What's wrong with this area?"

Light sighed, pulling a feminine brunette wig out of his jacket and putting it on, then he forced his voice up a couple octaves, "I'm gonna take my precious little offspring trick-or-treating. I know! I'll take her to that weird haunted house that just popped up out of nowhere between the autobody shop that never seems to open and a marijuana dispensary, just down the street from that experimental art collective industry, and the pizza shop that closed for healthcare violations."

"Okay, when you put it that way, sure, it sounds bad," Matsuda admitted, sounding slightly annoyed, but L was more preoccupied with something else.

"Light-Kun? Why do you keep a wig in your jacket?"

"I saw this conversation coming a mile away and didn't want to dig for a wig later. But you see now why I do what I do."

"Oh yeah!" L grabbed another wig, which was maroon, and he too put on a voice, "Don't forget that Kira and two Shinigami live in this haunted house!" 

"You two look good in wigs." Matsuda taunted, trying to change the subject in a ditch attempt to get them on board with his plan, "Maybe try being drag queens for Halloween. But anyway, we can put up a sign to tell kids to come down here for some candy."

"And what else?" Light asked, his voice naturally going up an octave in sheer exasperation, "Have a white van outside too?"

Matsuda huffed, pouting like a child, before storming off, "Matt, I need your help. I want to give candy to trick-or-treaters, but Light and L don't think they're going to go to the door.

Matt took off his goggles to make his eyebrow raise known, "You mean down a narrow, unlit underground driveway of a weird unmarked building?"

Matsuda threw his hands up, "What does everyone keep saying that?!"

"Because this is not a place that's safe to bring children." Matt insisted, "We have Kira _and_ Beyond Birthday, and _one_ of those should be enough to know that kids shouldn't be here—I still don't know why we let Near stay here!"

Matsuda was holding one of Matt's supposedly toy guns, "That is ridicu—" it fired, and it was a real gun, blowing a hole in the wall, "Huh. It was loaded."

"Well..." Matt smirked, "I do have some ideas."

OoOoO

Aizawa walked into the designated living room space, "Hey guys! Who wants to help me put up Halloween decorations?"

"Way ahead of you." Beyond announced, looking over blueprints, "Light told us about the party and asked us to help with the decorations. "

"Awesome—" Aizawa sat down next to the serial killer, and his eyes widened when he saw the blueprints, "Oh no, what am I looking at?!"

Beyond grinned innocently, "This is my plan for the candy bowl."

"I-I thought we'd use the pumpkin one." He held up an orange bucket with a face on it.

"I went in a different direction. This is really more a fleshy maw, rimmed with teeth, and decorated with hair. "

Aizawa shuddered, "That doesn't sound very comforting."

"Oh, you have no idea. Look at my plans for the moonbase entrance." He grabbed another blueprint, "I went with something that would evoke the feeling of entering a distending, shuddering lower intestine."

Aizawa stood up, not having the stomach to look, "I don't even want to know. And what's with the giant stack of papers?!"

Near was sitting in an ugly green armchair, holding a large box full of papers, "Hey, this is the complete minutes from the 2014 UN climate change summit."

"I don't get it."

"Well, have you read them?" Near asked.

"No!"

"They're horrifying!"

"When we were talking about Halloween decorations, we were talking about stuff like this." He held up the small skeleton decoration.

"We live with two Shinigami," Near replied in a monotone voice as though that was a reasonable sentence, "Do you really think our Halloweens are going to be reasonable at all?"

Beyond held the phone away from him, "Aizawa, if you want a skeleton, you need a better one than that. And do you order flesh by weight or by volume?" He shrugged, getting back on the phone, "Uh... I'll take thirty?"

OoOoO

Matsuda was sitting in front of a presentation by Matt and Mello, which read "Candy Solution."

"Okay!" Matt announced, "So, we've come up with a candy delivery solution."

"Solution?" Matsuda asked skeptically, "We are handing out bite-sized candies to fun-sized humans."

Matt laughed, "Please, Matsuda. Mello and I have developed a device comprised of two caramel hemispheres surrounding a subcritical gobstopper." He showed more diagrams and pictures on the presentation, "When initiated, theory indicates that it will create a flavor implosion, precipitating an actual explosion, candying twenty city blocks if we use an airburst." Part of the chart on the PowerPoint distinctly pointed out that there would mostly be chaos, ruined buildings, fires, and destruction for most of this. "The good news is that the projected casualty rate—"

"Woah Woah Woah Woah Woah," Matsuda stood up, "Is this a literal nuclear option?!"

"We prefer the term 'nuclear inspired.'" Mello replied, and Matsuda was nearly hysterical,

"No! No hemispheres, no airburst, no whatever _that_ is!"

"Well..." Mello looked to Matt, "We could go with the less exciting option."

Matsuda massaged his temples, feeling a bit like Aizawa at that moment, "Does the 'less exciting' option description still contain the phrase projected casualties?"

"We could skip that part." Mello offered, "We've also come up with a peanut butter charge."

"A candy corn frag-round."

"And a nougat slug!"

"Do you have anything that will—and I can't believe I need to specify this—deliver candy _non-lethally_?" Matsuda was on the brink of tears as the two youngers brought him to the roof, where they fired a gun filled with candy at a dressed-up mannequin of a child, causing the face to cave in."

Mello shrugged, "Obviously, a human face is more durable."

"NO!"

"Oh, come on," Mello looked to the gun in his hands, "What if I fill it with M&M minis?"

"That's not better!" Matt nodded,

"Also, it would be unhygienic because that candy's out of the package."

"That is _not_ the problem!" Matsuda was pacing, realizing Light and L had been right about this being a bad idea, "Okay, _no_ trick-or-treaters, certainly no candy, let's just have the party."

Soichiro stormed out in a rage, "No! Party's over!"

"What? Why?" The trio already up here asked.

"Misa just used all the toner," the chief explained, "Then I spent forty-five minutes on the phone trying to cancel an order of thirty thousand gallons of sheep entrails!"

"You order that stuff by volume?" Matt asked, before shrugging, "You learn something new every day." But Mello was put out,

"So we're not giving away candy, and we're not throwing a party. What are we doing this year?"

"The same thing adults do every year," Matsuda said sadly, "We'll stay inside and argue about which scary movie to watch on Netflix." Then he paused, "Chief, you said you were _trying_ to cancel the order."

"Don't worry about it." Soichiro walked away, and Matsuda followed.

"I'm worried about it."

OoOoO

L was reading a book as the others were arguing over which movie to watch, and he turned to see Beyond Birthday walking in with two buckets full of something.

"I got the blood for the party!" Beyond chirped.

"First of all, there will be no party." L stood up, looking down at the substance in the buckets, "Second of all, where did you find so much fake blood?"

"Wait," Beyond paused, "You wanted _fake_ blood?"

Everyone stared at Beyond in horror, until Near walked up, dipping his hand in the blood and sniffing it,

"Beyond... what kind of blood is this? Please tell me you just went to the deli."

"Well... I did."

They all knew what he meant: that he killed the guy at the deli counter. 

"BEYOND!" 


	10. Detectives With Hats, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Llamas with Hats, episode 2

L and Beyond were standing on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean. Behind them was a sinking cruise ship. Why? What had L let Matsuda talk him into going on vacation with Beyond as a sort of bonding? Maybe it was because the tickets were already paid for, and one can only deal with Misa for so long. And he couldn't trust anyone else to keep watch on Beyond Birthday, so if you want something done, you have to do it yourself.

Turns out, that didn't matter. Because L turned his back to get food for _one second_ , and everything went to hell.

For some reason, Beyond was wearing Light's green beanie. L was once again wearing his red hat. This was mostly done because they had been getting sick and tired of being mistaken for each other on that ship, so they wore a different hat.

"Beyond! What on Earth was all that?"

"I'm not sure what you're referring to," Beyond replied, not even looking in the direction of the sinking ship.

"You sunk an entire cruise ship, Beyond!"

Beyond Birthday put a finger under his chin, "Are you sure that was me? I—I would think I'd remember something like that."

L narrowed his eyes, "Beyond, I watched you fire a harpoon into the captain's face!"

"That sounds dangerous."

"You were headbutting children off the ship!" At that point, L hadn't really been able to stop the bloodshed and had reached that state of mind where he was thinking, "fuck this shit, I'm out." And he was a little annoyed Beyond hadn't gone down with the ship.

"That, uh... that must've been horrifying to watch!"

"Then you started making out with the ice sculpture!" 

"Well, thank God that the children weren't on board to see it." Beyond replied, and a small part of L wished he had been headbutt off the boat so _he_ wouldn't have seen that. Then he looked down and noticed something he hadn't seen before,

"Uhh... Beyond, why is the lifeboat all red and sticky?" Beyond looked down as well,

"Well, I guess you could say it _is_ red and sticky."

L looked up, already fearing the answer, "Beyond, what are we standing in?"

"Would you believe it's strawberry milkshake?"

"Speaking as someone who drinks a lot of strawberry milkshakes, no! I would not believe that!" L snapped, and the smell of blood was filling his nostrils. _Please let it be an animal and not..._

"Uhh, melted gumdrops?

"No."

"Boat nectar?"

"No."

"Some of God's tears?" L could practically hear Light and his god complex, stating he doesn't cry blood. Actually, L wondered if that man had tear ducts at all.

"Tell me the truth, Beyond."

"Fine." Beyond looked away, "It's the lovely elderly couple from 2B."

"BEEEYOOOND!" 

"Well, they were, uh, they were taking all the jam for their croissant rolls. Besides, their lifespans were very close to over, so I might as well put them out of their misery."

"I can't believe what I'm hearing!"

"I will not apologize for the art." L looked around and paled—which, considering how pale he already was, was a bit weird,

"Where are the other lifeboats?" Beyond looked around too,

"Whoa! You won the prize, I didn't even notice that."

"Where are the other lifeboats, Beyond?"

Beyond looked up at the sky, "Looking at the trajectory of the moon and the sun, probably at the bottom of the ocean. I stabbed lots of holes in them."

"BEYOND! How did you even get a knife on the ship?!" 

"I stole a steak knife, and I have a problem. I have a serious problem."

"You are just terrible today!" He recoiled when Beyond pressed a finger to his lips,

"Shhh! D'you hear that? That's the sound of forgiveness."

"That's the sound of people drowning, Beyond."

"That is what forgiveness sounds like: screaming and then silence."


	11. Sick Day Milkshakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> L and Light have the flu and have been left alone in the moonbase by the team. L wants milkshakes, and Light is too miserable to stop him, even though they both know sick detectives and doing hard things do not mix well.

L and Light, extraordinarily bored and alone in the moonbase, were deciding to see how many episodes of Supernatural they could squeeze in. It was a competition that they predicted the basic plot of each chapter, such as the time Castiel died in [insert season here] L predicted he would return in three episodes. Sure enough, Castiel appeared in the last thirty seconds of the third episode. They also liked guessing the monster in each.

Now, the reason they were alone was that the others had gone bowling, and Light and L both had 102.5-degree fevers and the flu. It was a real pain. L was fine except for sweating, feeling too hot, and occasionally vomiting. Light felt like that princess in the Disney movie who froze to death,  _ and _ he was coughing every two minutes and was pretty sure he had used up Japan's tissues. 

After the episode they were currently on ended, L glowered at the Netflix screen as it asked if they were still watching.  _ Yes, Netflix, your whole purpose is for binge-watching, don't you judge me!  _

L crossed his arms. At this point, his deductive reasoning was dropped by 95% because every time he tried to get some work done, the flu would remind him that he was boiling alive and needed to puke. With how different their symptoms were, it was shocking they had caught the same thing. But you knew Light was miserable when he groaned at the idea of using the Death Note.

With how cold Light claimed to be, he had stolen all the blankets, not that L mattered since he had been reduced to wearing nothing except his boxers anyway. He nudged Light, who was coughing into his arm again, then paused, grabbing a tissue to hack out a glob of brown phlegm. 

"I want milkshakes. We can heat yours if you want." Light looked at him. Regardless of the fact he claimed to feel like he was freezing to death, his skin was extremely flushed, caramel-colored hair darkened with sweat and plastered to his face.

"I don't think..."

"Don't think. We should do it. Nobody's here to stop us." Light sighed, getting up, pulling his fuzzy bathrobe shut,

"Fine. Let's go."

They walked down to the kitchen, and L knew the sight they were giving the security cameras was an odd one, but he was on a mission and didn't care right now.

"Now..." he opened the fridge, realizing Watari usually did this for him, and he didn't have any idea what he was doing. Well, he was the three greatest detectives on Earth, and he had Light to help him. How bad could this be?

He grabbed the small blender, some heavy whipping cream, some ice cubes—one of which he let sit under his tongue because the heat flashes he was dealing with were like a pregnant woman and it sucked—regular milk, some kinder bars, and a large bottle of chocolate sauce.

"Milkshake, attempt one." He put in the ingredient and blended it, rather frustrated when the chocolate syrup put up a fight. Eventually, he gave up and frowned at the murky white substance. He handed some to Light, "Try this."

"Are we sure we are going to like it? Doesn't sickness mess with your ability to taste?" Light let out a hacking cough after saying that, before shrugging, deciding he had nothing to lose at this point because he felt like death warmed up. He grabbed a straw and drank some. An odd look crossed his face, "It's weird. Like it  _ should _ be good, but it is also really weirdly bland." L grabbed a second straw and tried it, agreeing with Light's statement. He turned back to the bottle of chocolate syrup, deciding to try again. Once again, it refused. 

The remainders of his deductive reasons remembered he had seen this bottle in the fridge well over a year ago. Judging by its placement in the fridge, it could have been there much longer and well past its expiration date. He checked and saw he still had twelve hours until this stuff expired. They had excellent timing then.

He huffed as he used up his energy in an attempt to get the sauce out before he got an idea and went looking for his mini-blowtorch that he used to roast marshmallows sometimes when it was 3am, and he wanted a snack. L growled when he saw it had run out of fuel; then, he brightened when he got a terrible idea that his flu-ridden brain was saying was genius. 

He turned on the stove and held the bottle above it, before deciding to put on oven mitts and use tongs. 

"Isn't there going to be plastic in the milkshake now?" Light asked, and L turned,

"If there is, I'm too sick to care." He waited another few moments before taking the bottle off the stove and turning the cooking appliance off. Then he tried to pour the chocolate sauce into the milkshake again.

Light laughed a little, "Anyone who saw this without context would have no idea we are the two smartest people on Earth."

L grabbed a knife to stab into the bottle, and that not working. He was very fed up with this bottle, so he grabbed a butcher knife and heated it over the stove, using it to cut the bottle open so he could finally force the chocolate sauce out, and it came out in an all too descriptive 'pop' sound.

He once again tried to use the blender, hitting it a couple of times to make sure it worked. Thankfully, it worked this time if he put some force into it. L Lawliet was many things, but a patient man was not one of them, especially when he was sick.

Light was watching this all unfold in trepidation, wondering whether this illness or L's burning—the state of his insides and skin made that part even more valid—desire for milkshakes was going to finish him off first.

Nervous as L slid him a cup with milkshake in it, they both drank quietly. Light was unable to taste it, but he was also barely able to breathe. At least L seemed happy, and the kitchen hadn't burned down. But he did wonder how they were going to explain why there was a partially melted and cut-in-half bottle of what used to be chocolate sauce next to a very messy blender because they both knew they weren't going to be the ones to clean that up.

L looked down at this milkshake. The flavor was good, but it wasn't cold enough to soothe his scorching skin. He decided to put it in the freezer but froze when he saw bags of what looked to be cut up human in there.

His appetite left him, and his illness decided to remind him that "Hey, vomiting is a symptom you have. Don't you wish you could react to this in stoic silence after a strongly worded call to Beyond? Yeah? Too bad."

L turned to Light, "Do you wanna get out of here before we start wondering who Beyond killed this time?" Light nodded, and the two made a beeline for anywhere that wasn't here.

The poor housekeepers.


	12. Overtired, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The task force is gossiping about Lawlight and wondering if this is what they have been reduced to, when Light screams for their help. He gave L an apple with dissolved sleeping pills on it, and now L hasn't woken up in seventeen hours. 
> 
> Now, it's up to the Wammy's Boys to prevent Matsuda from making this a full-on Snow White role-play, and wake up L.

"Wanna play a game?" Matsuda cheerfully asked Aizawa and Mogi, who were both reading newspapers, looking rather bored.

Aizawa looked up, "Um...sure?"

Matsuda giggled, "It's called 'L or Misa.' I give you actual quotes I have heard Light say, and you guess if he was talking to his girlfriend or L."

There was silence for a moment, before Mogi grinned, "Awesome."

"HELP! L NEEDS HELP! HELL HAS FROZEN OVER!"

The three members of the task force heard Light scream this, and they all got up to see what the problem was. It shocked them to no end that Kira was saying L needed help and wasn't celebrating.

"I am convinced Light and L have a thing for each other," Matsuda said, gesturing to the Lawlight fan club button he had on his shirt. Matsuda was the president, Ryuk was the vice president. 

"They certainly don't hate each other like arch-enemies typically do," Aizawa agreed, "But I wouldn't say it's romantic..."

"Did you not see the positions I found them in?" Mogi asked, "Usually, the byproduct of one tripping and taking the other down with them, but the point still stands that if it's not romantic, it's at least sexual. We all know Light and Misa's relationship is one-sided, and Light has tried to break up with her many times."

"Is this what we've been reduced to?" Aizawa asked, "We are police officers, and now we are essentially gossiping over the love lives of L and Chief Yagami's son, Kira."

They entered L's bedroom and were met with a sight that without question counted as hell freezing over.

L was sleeping.

Light was shaking him, but the insomniac detective remained immobile. The serial killer looked up at them with wide eyes,

"I think I killed him!" He sounded somewhere between excited, shocked, and even a little devastated. Matsuda looked at L, who was breathing correctly, but he wasn't moving on the bed.

"What happened?"

"He was keeping me up with the endless clicking," Light explained, and the task force nodded in understanding at that pain. L had decided that if he wasn't going to arrest Kira, they were still going to be together at night so he couldn't grab the Death Note and kill people, "So I decided to dissolve a strong sleeping pill on an apple." 

"And that worked?" Aizawa asked, and Light nodded,

"Like a charm. The problem is that it was only meant to last a couple hours, but it's been close to sixteen hours, and I'm worried."

"Kira is worried about L?"

"Shut up, I was not supposed to kill him this way. That's too much like the Disney movie, Snow White, and I'm not falling to my death and getting eaten by vultures thank you very much. I'm supposed to kill him after a convoluted plan and use my smarts to win, not a sleeping pill!"

Matsuda burst out laughing, "Oh my god, this is gold. Ryuzaki really does have skin as pale as snow, and hair as dark as night."

"Guys," Mogi offered, "Has it occurred to you that Ryuzaki's body used the pill as the catalyst for making up all that sleep he's lost if the bags under his eyes say anything?" Matsuda shushed him,

"Shut up, now we must travel across the land to find his true love. I'll get a dress." Aizawa snorted despite himself,

"You're going to go full Disney on this, and he is not going to be happy when he wakes up."

"It's going to be worth it." Matsuda had an evil look on his face. Light was speed-walking away when Matsuda grabbed his wrist, "Where do you think you're going?"

"To get L's true love: cake. I should have grabbed that before calling for someone to help me out." Speak of the devil, Ryuk phased in through the wall,

"I heard a scream." Matsuda was still grinning,

"Light gave L a poison apple, and now he won't wake up."

"It wasn't poisoned! How was I supposed to know he wouldn't wake up?"

Matsuda rolled his eyes, "Ryuk, inform the others what has happened. If we're going to do this, we'll do it right." 

Aizawa and Mogi looked at each other, each saying, "Matsuda, you idiot," in their minds, but secretly wanting to see how this unfolded.

Light already knew he would _never_ hear the end of this.

OoOoO

Thankfully, L's successors were not amused by the Snow White joke, so when they saw L lying in bed with Matsuda trying to put a dress on him, Mello whipped out a gun.

So, now, it was more like Sleeping Beauty, with L in bed with his hands folded over his stomach, and the Wammy's Boys were uniting their genius to find a way to wake him up.

"We could try noise," Matt offered like it was a game in preschool and not their idol in a deep sleep on the bed in front of them. He walked over to L, "HEY! L!"

No response.

"L!"

"I'm sure he's aware of what his name is, Mail," Beyond muttered, eating some jam out of a jar with his bare hand, "Obviously, that's not going to work."

"...L!" 

"Matt, that's not gonna work," Mello got up, sitting down on the bed next to the sleeping man, "Hey, L," He grabbed L's floppy arm and began shaking gently. "Wake up." He scowled. His shaking grew rougher. "WAKE UP!"

Near quickly grabbed Mello's wrist before he ended up slapping L or throwing him across the room. "Mello. It's not working. Calm down."

"Um… sorry. I got carried away," Mello said sheepishly. He stood up and sighed, running a hand through his hair. "He sure is a heavy sleeper. It's like he's dead."

Watari, who had come in moments ago, stiffened. Mello gulped. "I mean… uh… sorry?"

"Actually," Watari said tensely, glaring in Light's direction from where the young man had been tied to the chair, "Ryuzaki is usually a very light sleeper on the rare occasions he does sleep. I guess it's because he was _drugged_."

Near suddenly stood up straight, turning around. "We must research this. Surely there is a cure somewhere on the Internet." He walked towards the door, and the others followed. 

After opening a few Google results, Near was getting a bit nervous. Overdosing on these sleeping drugs was terrible, but thankfully L hadn't overdosed. They just couldn't wake him up. If he had overdosed, he would be dead and have likely foamed at the mouth at some point. 

Behind him, Watari, Matt, and Mello were nearly panicking. Beyond was eating jam without care, probably because he could see everyone's lifespan. Trying to ignore the butterflies that were bouncing off the walls of his stomach, Near looked at the little surveillance screen to distract himself.

He saw Light had freed himself, and Near groaned, getting up to get that crazy serial killer away from L. But when he walked in, the strangest thing happened. As soon as he alerted Light to his presence, Light accidentally stepped on a piece of paper Matt had left on the floor earlier.

It all seemed to happen slowly.

As he fell, Light saw things with a heightened perspective. Every detail he saw with the utmost clarity. Near's anger morphed into shock and horror. His own hand flying out in the vain hope of grabbing on to something to catch himself, his fist accidentally hitting L in the gut, L's face twisting into discomfort. And finally, L's eyelids fluttering open just as Light fell on top of him, their lips colliding.

Any drowsy side-effects were shaken away instantly.

"WHAT THE—?! LIGHT-KUN!"

"Light! Get off him!" Near and Mello said in synch, and then stared at each other in shock because them agreeing on something was extremely rare. Matt looked like he was preparing for the apocalypse, seeing an agreement between L's rival successors.

Beyond shrugged, "At least he woke up." 

L rubbed his head, then saw Matsuda and Ryuk run in, holding one of the security camera tablets and looking like children at Christmas.

"Woke—? You drugged me, Light-Kun!"

"I didn't mean for you to be out for a day straight!"

OoOoO

Later on, in the computer room, Matsuda sipped his coffee and sighed. "It sure is lucky that L is so healthy, huh?"

Aizawa nodded in agreement. "True. If he wasn't in such good shape, he might've been much worse off."

"Still, I'm not surprised that what woke him up was Light's kiss," Matsuda laughed, raising his coffee mug to clink against Ryuk's mug of apple cider, "You all called me stupid, too!"

"It was the punch in the stomach that woke him up," Mello growled out, not looking at them.

"Of course. I mean, fairy tales aren't real," Mogi said, setting his cup down on the coffee table, "Just murder notebooks."

Matsuda grinned. "But still, hypothetically, would that mean that Light is L's—"

"No, Matsuda. No, it wouldn't," Beyond said, trying to focus on the paperwork in front of him.

"But—"

"No."

Shrugging, Matsuda went back to drinking his coffee. He glanced over at Light and L. The two men were currently staring intently at their computer screens, not speaking to each other.

"I wonder which one is the princess," Matsuda said, snickering.

"Matsuda," L turned with a look of murder in his eyes, but at least he looked less tired than he usually did, "Shut up."


End file.
